


Precluded

by Cryptographic_Delurk



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Disability, Dragon Age II Quest - Sketchy On the Details, Dragon Age: Origins - Leliana's Song DLC, M/M, Tug Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:15:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27555217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryptographic_Delurk/pseuds/Cryptographic_Delurk
Summary: “The Mage Underground said I had better get things figured out, and fast. Apparently they don’t need the help of someone with five different mercenary groups after them.”There were a lot of things to complain about.
Relationships: Sketch/Tug (Dragon Age)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 6
Collections: 2020 A Paragon of Their Kind Dragon Age Dwarf Exchange





	Precluded

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaijuburgers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaijuburgers/gifts).



He complained about a lot of things.

There was a lot to complain about.

“The Mage Underground said I had better get things figured out, and fast,” Sketch grumbled. “Apparently they don’t need the help of someone with five different mercenary groups after them.”

“Didn’t think you’d care,” Tug huffed. “You used to care less. Kept talking about keeping your head down and out of trouble.”

“We all used to care less,” Sketch retorted. “But there’s not much point to that now.”

Tug wasn’t sure which part of that he was talking about. The part where it was hard to lie low and keep out of trouble when you’d made enemies of half a dozen interests in Val Royeaux, another handful in Denerim, and people sang about you in taverns wherever you went? Or the part where the Knight Commander and her templars were only getting more numerous and viscous, and they’d sniff you out wherever you were hiding if you didn’t have the guts to fight? Or the part where they were older and warier and could no longer pretend they didn’t believe in anything other than their own selfish hides? Sketch had complained about each in turn. Probably he had meant all three. They had somehow all bled together into the same narrative.

At least they had made enemies of the Carta naturally. Sketch had set half of them on fire one night in Darktown, rather than be mugged carrying money and missives and lyrium for the Underground. Tug thought that was a shame. He missed having friends who were other dwarves. He’d met a few when Sketch took him out on the weekends. But they were smiths and merchants and storytellers. Tug didn’t understand them the way he understood the Carta dwarves, with brands on their face and weapons in their hands.

Sketch sent out a few missives, and received a few back in return. And a solution to his problem was hammered out, for a price. Leliana didn’t understand how much it cost him to leave his staff at home and walk the thousand steps up to Kirkwall’s Chantry – to walk inside and pretend he was a normal elf, there on normal business, who just happened to have a suspiciously neutral accent and academic turn of phrase, and who had never been imprisoned or suffered for religious profiteering.

Leliana didn’t understand a lot of things. Tug could almost see the way her lips would purse, the way she’d chew on the inside of her cheek, when Sketch laid truths at her feet. She was a sweet girl. She’d always had trouble reconciling the goodness and beauty she saw in the world, and in its people, with their evil.

Truthfully, it was lucky that Leliana had been in town at all. Tug wondered if she’d walk the thousand steps down to their hovel by the docks. Later in the week maybe, if she found the time.

He stayed home while Sketch was out. He made porridge better than Sketch ever could, and carrots and roasted nug. He hefted himself from bed to chairs along counters. He had silk sheets, a pair of dumbbells to keep his arms strong, and a box of dyed and embroidered kerchiefs that Sketch added to every time he saw an interesting design at market.

He read Sketch’s books, or rather the margins of them. They were filled with doodles and scribbles and old memories: _Split-wood_ , _Ditch-rock_ , sketches of Chevaliers, a lute, music notes, a song. Every so often Tug came across his name – anecdotes about what annoyingly crass thing he’d said that day, scraps of info about Orzammar he’d let slip, transparently jealous ruminations about his old girlfriends – things that were only a hair’s breadth away from love notes. They made Tug smile.

“I can’t believe her!” Sketch said, when he got back. He threw common trousers and tunic on the floor, like they had burned him, and pulled his mage robes back over his head.

“What? She wouldn’t help you?” Tug snorted, from his spot on the bed.

“Of course she’s helping,” Sketch said. It would have been terribly out of character for Leliana not to. “Very officially. She’s placing a call-out for the assassins on the Chanter Board tonight, and I’m sure it’ll all be sorted before the end of the week.” He scoffed. “Trust her to make as big a production of it as possible.”

“It’s working itself out, isn’t it? Assassins dispatched. Your Underground will take you back. There’s oats and carrots and roasted nug on the stove. What do you have to complain about?”

“She just doesn’t understand anything,” Sketch said. “Even now she _still_ doesn’t get it. Spreading a song about an apostate mage and all the crimes they’ve committed across half of Thedas. Where was that going to end up? What was she thinking?” Tug felt the energy in the way Sketch shoved aside the furniture scattered around the room – an abundance of perches to cling to. “ _What was she thinking?_ ” he repeated to himself. _“_ She wasn’t thinking! That’s exactly her problem – she never thinks!”

The anger flooded him in an instant. Tug picked up the nearest book and hurled it at the nearest chair. Sketch startled, before Tug could realise that throwing a tantrum was probably not the most productive way of dealing with this.

He crossed his arms. “You complain an awful lot about that song.” The words were strained, through gritted teeth. “You’re not the one she killed off.”

Sketch had the audacity to snort a laugh. “It would have been better if I was the one she killed off. ‘Wanted Criminal’ just doesn’t ruffle as many feathers as ‘Wanted Apostate’.” He seemed to realise this was cruel though, and his face softened. “You know how she is. She probably thought it made a more tragically romantic story than two maimed legs and me struggling to carry you while she passed your axe off to that boot-licking Ferelden.”

It was Tug’s turn to laugh. A watery, ugly thing. “Glad to know my death would have been more romantic.”

“Oh, stop,” Sketch huffed. “You know _I_ don’t think that. It’s Leliana and her stories. You can’t take them so seriously.”

“You’d have been better off with an axe than with me.”

Sketch sighed, and came to sit on the bed, rearranging Tug’s legs into what was probably a more comfortable position.

“I hate to break this to you,” Sketch said. “But I would have absolutely no idea what to do with an axe.”

Tug snorted. “Can’t cook. Can’t chop a log.”

“In comparison-” Sketch leaned in, cutting him off before he could list any more deficiencies. “I have a lot of ideas about what I might do with you.”

Tug rolled his eyes and reached to grab him by the nape of the neck and pull him forward roughly, smash their faces together, nip affectionately at Sketch’s lips.

Sketch laughed. Kissed over to his cheek, and down Tug’s neck to his chest. He was good to his word and, for a while, neither of them had much to complain about.


End file.
